SOURCE: Enright, D. J. “Special Subjects.” New York Review of Books 33, no. 13 (14 August 1986): 37.

In the following excerpt, Enright describes the plot, themes, and characters of Letter to Lord Liszt, assessing the novel's value within the context of Walser's previous efforts.

“And my lament / Is cries countless,” goes one of Gerard Manley Hopkins's sonnets, “cries like dead letters sent / To dearest him that lives alas! away.” This would serve as a handy description of Martin Walser's new novel, except for the word “dearest.” Franz Horn is a middle-echelon executive, a sales manager, with Chemnitz Dentures. He has been on the skids for some time, with one attempt at suicide behind him, and Letter to Lord Liszt, consists largely of an epistle with nineteen postscripts, a mixture of confession and arraignment, which he is writing to his colleague and rival, Dr. Liszt, sardonically addressed as “Lord Liszt.” Fifteen years younger...